2017

Review: ‘Lucy’ at UrbanArias

As the PETA-hounded circus left town on its farewell tour, I headed to the Atlas Performing Center to see Lucy, an UrbanArias opera about an actual chimp. I was reassured to learn that no animals were...

Review: ‘The Four Seasons of Vivaldi and Piazzolla’ at The National Chamber Ensemble

Before a sold-out house Saturday, March 25, 2017, at the Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre, the National Chamber Ensemble wowed the audience with its creative revival of Antonio Vivaldi’s famous Four Seasons,...

Review: ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’ at Hedgerow Theatre

There are few adventure stories as durable as The Prisoner of Zenda. Anthony Hope’s 1894 novel – the story of a well-meaning Englishman who looks exactly like a European king, and who poses as the...

In the Moment: An Interview with Peter Meineck, Founder of Aquila Theatre, On Their Production of ‘Our Trojan War’

Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter. ― Homer, The Iliad, ‘Book 22’ (Tr. R. Fagles) Do ancient plays...

Review: ‘The Broken Heart’ at Quintessence Theatre Group

It’s unlikely you will be familiar with John Ford’s The Broken Heart. Like most early 17th century playwrights not named Shakespeare, Ford’s works are rarely performed: he’s known almost exclusively...

Review: ‘Luft Gangster’ at the Sheen Center

Developed out of a conversation playwright and lead actor Lowell Byers had with his cousin Lou Fowler – a Sergeant in the US Army Air Corps during World War II – upon their first meeting in 2009, Luft...

Review: ‘You for Me for You’ at InterAct Theatre Company

Is there any place on Earth more mysterious than North Korea? Aside from the grand ambitions of the brutal dictator (known to his subjects as “Our Dear Leader”) who runs the country without any...

Review: ‘Adapt!’ At The Wilma Theater

Adapt! is a new play that tells the story of Lenka, an immigrant from Communist-era Czechoslovakia who dreams of living in New York City. It’s a world premiere production, written and directed by...

Review: ‘Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them’ at Iron Crow Theatre

The Kids Are Alright Mom’s dead. Dad is never there. What happens when kids are left – virtually abandoned by the adults in their lives – to fend for themselves? In Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them...

The League of Professional Theatre Women’s 2017 Awards Celebration and Big Mingle

Founded in 1981, the mission of the League of Professional Theatre Women, a non-profit advocacy organization headquartered in New York City, is to promote increased opportunities, greater visibility,...

Review: ‘Diane Rehm in Conversation’ at The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History

Hosted by the Smithsonian Associates, at an event at the National Museum of Natural History, NPR host Tom Gjetlten interviewed former NPR radio host Diane Rehm about her new book, On My Own, her time...

Review: ‘Sweat’ at Studio 54

It took a while, but the Oregon Shakespeare Festival helped by staging this remarkable play in the summer of 2014. It caused enough of a stir for the Public Theatre in New York to pick it up for a run...

Interview: Meet the Cast of ‘Pygmalion’ at The British Players: Part One: Jenn Robinson

In Part One of a series of interviews with the cast of Pygmalion at The British Players, meet Jenn Robinson. Joel: Please introduce yourself and tell our readers where they may have seen you perform...

Review: ’10x10x10′ at Fells Point Corner Theatre

There is a profound depth of directing and acting talent in the Baltimore-Washington area. Much of that talent was on display at 10x10x10, a collection of plays by area playwrights, which is playing...

Review: ‘Midwestern Gothic’ at Signature Theatre

A native Midwesterner myself, I was eager to see Midwestern Gothic, Signature Theatre’s new show that is being touted as Misery meets Fargo, a thriller musical in the vein of Sweeney Todd set “in the...

Review: ‘Mamma Mia!’ at Westchester Broadway Theatre

Westchester Broadway Theatre is currently delighting audiences with a dazzling performance of Mamma Mia! This is their 200th production and is well worthy of the honor. From the beautiful peaceful...

Review: ‘Anna’ at EgoPo Classic Theater

EgoPo Classic Theater presents the world premiere of Anna as the final work in its Russian Masters Festival. Anna adapts the story of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina with lots of humor and physicality....

Review: ‘Pike St.’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Even as fear and animus split the human race asunder, great authors have reminded us for millennia that we really are all one. From the ancient Roman playwright Terrence (“I am human, and nothing...

Review: ‘Rent’ at The Hippodrome Theatre

Fans of Rent, it’s time to “Occupy Baltimore” once again. Hook yourselves up with tickets by any means necessary to that 20th Anniversary Tour making a brief, flash-point stop inside the old...

Review: ‘Improvaganza-A 3-Night Improv Festival’ Presented by Howard Community College’s Arts Collective

Thursday, March 30, 2017, the fun began in The Studio Theatre at Howard Community College with the start of Improvaganza-A 3 Night Improv Festival (with the additional bonus of three Master Classes in...

Review: ‘King Lear’ at George Washington University

Director Leslie Jacobson has book-ended Shakespeare’s dark tragedy King Lear with lyrical and lovingly-lit tableaux of the mad king’s court as if in a fairy-tale photo op—Lear regal on his throne, his...

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre

In the new Beauty and the Beast at Toby’s Dinner Theatre, it’s not just the accursed Beast and his castle of talking knickknacks that are caught in a magic spell of enchantment. So were lucky...

Review: ‘Church & State’ at New World Stages

Religion, gun control, and the impact of social media are the hot-button issues addressed by playwright Jason Odell Williams in Church & State, a political dramedy now making its New York premiere at...

Review: ‘Battlefield’ at The Kennedy Center

In The Empty Space Peter Brook declared that the stage has “two rules: (1) Anything can happen and (2) Something must happen.” In Battlefield, his collaboration with Marie-Hélène Estienne, those two...

Review: ‘Mary Poppins’ at Walkersville High School

From Bert the chimney sweep’s offstage introduction of the Bank’s stately home on London’s Cherry Tree Lane, the audience at Walkersville High School’s auditorium knows there’s magic in the air. Drama...

Review: Hamburg Ballet: John Neumeier’s ‘The Little Mermaid’

In this production, John Neumeier adapts the classic 1837 tale by Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid. The production, not only explores the story of a young woman who wishes to have a human...

Review: ‘Titanic’ at Our Lady of Good Counsel High School

Something about the RMS Titanic’s sinking has, for the past hundred or so years, always struck a chord with the American public. There have been many books, movies (particularly the 1997 James Cameron...

Review: ‘The Glass Menagerie’ at The Belasco Theatre

This is the play that introduced me to the writings of Tennessee Williams long ago, in 1945! That was the original production at the Playhouse Theatre on Broadway, and it contained the now legendary...

Review: ‘Faun’ at The Next Ice Age

The Columbia Figure Skating Club put on its annual spring show at the Columbia Ice Rink last Saturday and Sunday. The theme this year was Sing into Spring with two distinct parts. The first part...

Review: ‘Sub-Basement’ at Athena Theatre Company

It’s not always easy to decide who you are and what you want to be when you grow up, especially if your father, ex-boyfriend, new date, and society at large, in both Canada and the US, are pulling you...

In the Moment: A Talk with the Pipeline Playwrights: Part Two: Patricia Connelly and Jean Koppen

This is the second installment of In the Moment columns focusing on the Pipeline Playwrights. Pipeline Playwrights is a small collective of accomplished Northern Virginia women playwrights. Pipeline’s...

Review: Mozart’s ‘Idomeneo’ Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera

Mozart’s Idomeneo is a landmark opera. It is undeniably a great achievement by a 25-year-old composer in the early stage of his career. Unlike the later Mozart operas, Idomeneo was written in the...

Review: ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ at Laurel Mill Playhouse

Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring, directed by Jen Sizer and produced by Maureen Rogers, opened at Laurel Mill Playhouse on Friday, March 24th. The script was written in 1939 at the end of the...

Magic Time! ‘Dry Land’ & ‘What Every Girl Should Know’ at Forum Theatre

I’ve seen some harrowing-to-watch theater in my time, but I recall nothing as excruciating as a particular scene in Dry Land, now running at Forum Theatre. The play by Ruby Rae Spiegel is set in the...

Post-Play Palaver: ‘Three Sisters’ and ‘No Sisters’ at Studio Theatre

Post-Play Palaver is an occasional series of conversations between DCMetroTheaterArts writers who saw the same production—in this case the same two productions, Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Aaron...

Review: ‘Mary Poppins’ at Charm City Players

For a day of family fun, it doesn’t get much better than Charm City Players. Charm City’s current production, Mary Poppins, continues their tradition of affordable family entertainment helmed by...

Review: ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ at Providence Players of Fairfax

In a scene of fierce confrontation between Atticus Finch and Bob Ewell in Providence Players’ production of To Kill a Mockingbird, Ewell insults Atticus in such a vicious way, that one wonders why...

Review: ‘The New Yorkers’ at New York City Center’s Encores!

Producer Jack Viertel and his merry band of music makers at Encores! have unearthed another great example of the beginnings of American dominance in the field of musical theatre. Our heritage is so...

Review: ‘Wiseguy Kitchen Dinner Show’ at Germano’s Piattini

Wiseguys, also known as those certain individuals the U.S. Government considers a bit more organized than they should be, descended on the quaint restaurant Germano’s Piattini in Baltimore, MD...

Review: ‘Twisted Melodies’ at Baltimore Center Stage

Despite affecting nearly one in every five Americans, including ‘70s soul singer and songwriter Donny Hathaway (perhaps, best remembered for his chart-topping collaborations with Roberta Flack),...

Review: ‘Well’ at 1st Stage

“Social ills” is a term often used to name a problem without caring about the people affected by it—as in the phrase “racism and other social ills.” It’s a way of keeping one’s distance by making the...

Review: ‘NSO Pops: Sophisticated Ladies: 100 Years of Ella & Company’ at The Kennedy Center

Acclaimed vocalists Capathia Jenkins, Sy Smith and Montego Glover joyously hopped the A train to Harlem along with the NSO Pops in tribute to the Queen of Jazz in Sophisticated Ladies: 100 Years of...

Review: ‘The King and I’ at the Academy of Music

More than sixty years after its debut, The King and I remains one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most popular and enduring musicals. The handsome national touring company of the recent Broadway revival...

Review: ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ at the Walnut Street Theatre

The Walnut Street Theatre is doing The Importance of Being Earnest in high style. The Victorian era was noted for its excesses in decoration and costume, and Robert Koharchik’s set design for this...

Review: ‘The Shattering Frame: A Bridgette Miakowski Mystery’ at Annex Theater

It was night like any other night in Charm City; me and my fella were sitting home, gabbin’ about what to do. We remembered hearing some buzz about a brand new play that ain’t never been seen before....

Review: ‘Los Otros’ #2 at Everyman Theatre

It may be more by chance, rather than design, that Everyman Theatre’s production of Los Otros, with book and lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh and music by Michael John LaChiusa, takes on an urgent sense of...

Review: ‘Footloose’ at Quince Orchard High School

WOW!!! Actual bouncing off walls, excitement, enthusiasm and synchronized choreography – and that was just maneuvering into a parking space out front! Footloose Director Nicholas Jullian Saadipour and...

Review: ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ at The Catholic University of America

Who would have thought that an evening of love, ambition, betrayal, violence, and death could be so enjoyable? That is precisely what last night’s production of Lucia di Lammermoor at The Catholic...

Review: ‘Tribulation Periwinkle: Civil War Nurse’ at Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion

In commemoration of Women’s History Month, Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion’s Victorian Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Tribulation Periwinkle: Civil War Nurse. Adapted and directed by Josh...

Review: ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at Mount Vernon Community Children’s Theatre

I don’t think this is Virginia anymore, Mount Vernon Community Children’s Theatre’s production of The Wizard of Oz transported the audience from Munchkin Land to the Emerald City all down a yellow...